`New Rules' Are Key To Workplace Survival

That's the advice-if not the exact wording-that an internationally known management consultant has for employees who want to survive the multitudinous changes occurring in the workplace.

Gerard R. Egan, professor of organization development and psychology at Loyola University of Chicago, says workers need to understand "the new reality" of employment created by "a global marketplace, constant change and cut-throat competition."

Egan says employees must learn the "new rules" of work. "The old rules weren't explained to us, either," said Egan, who has a doctorate in clinical psychology and a master's degree in philosophy. "But you knew if you did a fairly decent job and kept your nose clean, you had employment for life. The old rules were based on the assumption that the company would be around forever-and it was."

The new rules, Egan says, "mean that every employee must be a contributor, that it's not good for you-or for the company-for you to stay around for your entire career; and that you have to partner with the company to make it a winner, otherwise it won't be there."

Egan sees the new reality: He has done consulting for Sears, Montgomery Ward, AT&T, Amoco Oil, British Broadcasting System and Washington National Insurance.

The author of "Adding Value: A Systematic Guide to Business-Driven Management and Leadership" (Jossey-Bass, $27.50), Egan cites AT&T as an example of the new reality. "AT&T never used to fire anyone," he said, "but in the new AT&T, everyone has to contribute."

Today, Egan says, companies and employees must be co-learners. "The company has to keep learning to do its business better, to factor in the changes in the economy. Employees must keep getting better at their jobs."

Egan has advice for workers on the new rules:

- Initiative: "Self-starters will do well, but if you're laid back and take what comes, you may be in trouble. You have to be in charge of your career."

- Loyalty: "We have to rethink this thing called loyalty. It should be a mutual commitment with trust on both sides, employees and management alike. The problem is it rarely exists on either side, but we pretend it does."

His advice for management:

- Professionalism: "Companies have to make management a profession. Right now it's a pickup game in which people who are good at something else are made managers. Managers must be able to develop employees and work in partnership with them instead of against them."

- Diversity: "If a company has more than one employee, it has a social system. Management must help celebrate diversity. It makes the institution richer and employees happier."

Egan calls management's failure to explain these changes to employees "the shadow side of business."

In an article published in Management Today, he describes the harm that befalls management and employees when the real rules of the workplace are "off camera."

The costs, he says, of incompetent and oppressive managers, of "a performance management and appraisal system that everyone tries to avoid or work around and of a covert . . . cultural norm . . . are undetermined but high."

If management and employees work together, Egan asserts, "it will lead to improved quality of work life and good economic results."

But not everyone is so optimistic.

Paul R. Booth, assistant to the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in Washington, says there's a missing piece.

"A part of the new reality that management doesn't like to talk about is that the number of employees will be reduced," Booth said. "But it's not as if there's less work to be done: The work is going to be done by people not called employees. It will be contracted out."

He suggests that another rule of the new reality, with its so-called "collaborative spirit," should be this: "Employees shouldn't put all their faith blindly into promises that are not enforceable."

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Carol Kleiman's columns appear in the Tribune on Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday.